hours when a similar noise again aroused me.  Up came another carriage at the same slapping pace.  Pat, pat, pat, went the hoofs upon the hard avenue.  The wheels rattled; the gravel grated on the ear; there was the same quick, sharp, knowing pull-up at the main door, and the same impatient stamp of high-fed steeds anxious to be off, and eager for the rest and feed of the stable.  I became irritated and angry.  ’A pretty house,’ said I, ’for an invalid!  Guests arriving at all hours!  Moreover, a precious lot of fresh faces shall I have to encounter at the breakfast table.  A nice figure I am!  My walk particularly straight and lively!  I shall be “the observed of all observers” with a vengeance.  I wish with all my soul I had remained at Exeter.  I had there my hospitable friends, the Greens, in “the Barn-field,” to keep an eye to me, while here, carriages are driving up at a splitting pace from midnight to cock-crowing.’  And fuming and fretting, chafed and annoyed, I lay feverish and discontented till daybreak.

“The next morning, having taken peculiar pains with my toilet, and having arrived at the inevitable conclusion that I hobbled worse than ever, and was as infirm as an old gentleman of eighty, I presented myself in the breakfast room.

“I expected to find it lined with fresh faces.  I was mistaken.  The party assembled was the same, without diminution or addition, which I had quitted the preceding evening.  After an interchange of civilities I hazarded an inquiry:—­

“‘Where are the new arrivals?’

“‘There are no new arrivals,’ said my hostess; ’I hope you are not tired of us already?’

“‘You allude to an utter impossibility,’ was my rejoinder; ’but beyond all doubt two carriages drove up to the main entrance early this morning.’

“‘You are our only guest,’ observed my hostess with an air of peculiar gravity, and even perceptible annoyance in her manner.

“‘You see us as we are, a quiet family party, Mr. Newburgh,’ observed the youngest daughter hastily, and then adroitly changed the conversation.

“‘Oh,’ thought I, ’I’m on unsafe ground.  Some disagreeable people, self-invited, and dismissed at all hazards.  Very well. Moi c’est egal! What concern have I with the family arrangements of another?’

“The second night of my visit drew on.  I slept well and soundly till about three in the morning, when my slumbers were suddenly broken by a rapid rush of horsemen across the lawn, directly under my dressing-room window.  ‘Hunting at three in the morning is a rank absurdity,’ was my comment; ’but if I ever heard the sound of horses and horsemen I did then.  The park gates must have been left open, and the farm horses have broken loose.  Utter destruction to the lawn, and to the flower beds, and the glorious rhododendrons!  What negligent menials.’  And while murmuring my abhorrence of such atrocious carelessness, and my deep regret at its results, my eyes closed.  The next morning I peeped with apprehension from my window, on what I presumed would prove a scene of devastation.  All was fair and smiling, gaze where I would.  Here was the trim and smoothly shaven lawn—­there the blooming parterre—­beyond the early flowering shrubs not a twig, not a leaf injured.  I left my room in amazement.